Day 4: April 20th, 2014: Easter

9:00am, Matthew Henderson vs Husam Hamour: 3-2

We are in the BU 17 consolation Semi-Final at 9:00am, Matthew has been fighting a cold since we arrived in Toronto.  Now playing the first match of the day, we have a battle on our hands.  Husam is a 5/8 seed in the tournament and carries a much higher national ranking.  In the first game Husam opens up an early lead, with Matt clipping the top of the tin.  As junior squash goes Husam answered back with enough tin of his own to even the game at 10 all.  Did I say tin?  Husam wins the first game off one of Matt’s tin, 13-11.  The second game was much of the same, but a weakness in Husam’s game was identified.  His forehand technique does not allow him to be consistent, as he comes through the ball with a flat racquet.  Matt was unable to execute an effective attack on the forehand and lost the 2^nd game 12-10.  The 3^rd to 5^th game we had the plan in place and only needed to execute.  Matt executed, and won, 11-6, 11-6, 11-5.  Some times you find the fire to win and everything goes your way.  In the 5^th, Matt shots were on and there was nothing that Husam could do. Next Match 12:20pm with Michael Mehl, same person he played in the Quarterfinals to days ago

11:00am Grace Thomas vs Hanna Blatt: 3-0, 3^rd/4^th place

Grace has a 1 and 1 record with Hanna this year.  Grace beat Hanna in Victoria at the PNW in February but lost to her in the Alberta Jesters in November.  We had the intel that Hanna had injured her hamstring, and she wore a wrap visibly on her right leg, which deduce which side of the court to attack.  The first game was a back and forth battle up till 8 all when Hanna went on walk about hitting 3 tins in a row.  In the second Hanna gained the lead 9-6 and in a similar fashion hit 3 tins in a row to even the game and the eventual win for Grace.  The third was a no contest game and a final placing of 3^rd in the Girls Under 17

12:20pm Matthew Henderson vs Michael Mehl, 5^th/6^th place

After beating Mehl in the quarterfinals these two players meet again in the finals of the consolation.  Each played a match in the morning and each are tired from the weekends battles.  How to define the match, according to Nicolas…Lets and Strokes!  During the first game there were a collection of calls that were unpredictable by the players and coaches.  We were a perplexed by the logic of some of the calls.  At one point in the first game Michael said to the referee we should play a let, and both players over ruled the referee.  Matt Henderson intentionally served the ball out after a No let call against Michael.  After all the craziness Matt won the first game 11-6, lost the second 11-13, then in tight games edged out Michael 11-8, 11-9 to win the Boys Under 17 consolation placing 5^th at the 2014 Canadian Junior Championships.

What a weekend.  What a time.  We will remember, Frankie’s, Nicolas tapping out after a 10 min submission match with Henderson, Matt not making his flight home, Tim Horton’s on Good Friday, and 5 players packed into one room.  Good times.  Glad to be home.

Just about arrived at the Hotel April 16th

Ben driving to the hotel April 16th

Practice before the tournament, April 16th

Practice before the tournament, April 16th

Nathan vs Neel, April 19th

Injury time out, April 19th

Bronze Medal, April 20th

Grace, Ben, Matthew, April 20th

BC crew after the awards ceremony, April 20th

Patty and Nathan, April 20th

Gavin's good side, April 20th

Walking to the Airport Check-in, April 20th

Retail Therapy, April 20th

Working on the Blog, April 20th

Janel and Nathan, April 20th

Janel and Paula, April 20th

Cheers

Ben

Day 2 - April 18th, 2014

Its is 11:30pm and I am just sitting down to write todays post.  Yes we were the last match of the day, yes we had to go out on good Friday and find the only open restaurant, Tim Horton's.  Although we are back in the hotel room and lining up for the showers.  John Dempsey has brought over a basket of Easter Candy and all is good...Back to the Blog and our matches...

10:45am Nathan Von Hagen vs Quinton Anderson 3-0

4:50pm Nathan Von Hagen vs Michael Greenwood 3-0

Nathan started the day in the consolation draws.  Fortunately for Nathan he would have a couple easy matches.  Both matches provided Nathan an opportunity to build his confidence in his game and get ready for a tougher haul on Day 3.

1:30pm Grace Thomas vs Charlotte Choppas 3-1

48 hours after arriving in Toronto, Grace finally stepped on court for her 2nd match.  This time it was Charlotte Copas.  In the first Grace was a bit tentative but forced more errors out of her opponent than she made.  The Second game Grace flicked the ball around the court and found herself losing 11-2 before she knew what had happened.  In the usual Grace fashion she came back and dominated the last 2 games using basic length and strength.  The shot of the match was a rolling nick on game ball in the third.  Tomorrow Grace will play in the Semi-Finals.  Keep an eye on our Twitter or Facebook page for an announcement of the live stream. 

2:15pm Kellan O'Neill vs Julien Gosset 0-3

Day 2 and 2nd match for Kellan, this time against the second seed, Julien Gosset.  The match was a 0-3 loss for Kellan but each of the games were tight and Kellan played some of the best squash I've seen from him in a while.  On the flip side I was not impressed with Julien's aloof attitude on court but was impressed with Kellan demeanour in the face of defeat. Tomorrow will be a big day for Kellan.  3 match and 3 wins will put him in the top 8.

2:50pm Nicolas Vincent vs Mateo Bultrago 3-1

6:00pm Nicolas Vincent vs Adam Vanwyngaarden 0-3

Nicolas had two matches today.  One hot and the other cold.  Vincent punished his opponent and ran him around the court till he submitted easily in the 4th.  Stepping on court for his second match Nicolas had a string of errors and could not pull it back together.  Front wall nicks resulting in strokes, and Adam's volley kept Nick from building any momentum in the match

2:15pm Matthew Henderson vs Michael Mehl (3/4) 3-1

8:40pm Matthew Henderson vs Brett Schille 1-3

Stars today go to Matthew Henderson.   Heading into his first match of the day (a nice reasonable 2:15pm) Matt met up with the 3/4 seed in the tournament.  Unfortunately the first game slipped away 11-6 with Matt trying to match Mehl's crazy angles.  In the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Matt confined Mehl with penetrating length, and yes a winning reverse boast on game ball.  By no means were the games blowouts but Mehl was visibly upset, receiving 2 conduct strokes for unsportsmanlike behaviour.  The last 4 games were won by Matt with 2 point gaps each time (11-9, 14-12, 13-11)

For the last match of the day, we had Matt Henderson and Brett Schille.  Starting at 9:20pm and running till 10:10pm this 4 game match had drama and tension.  The first 2 games, Matt held the first two games, neck and neck, but was too involved with the referees calls.  He was playing well he just couldn't finish.  In the 3rd game Matt started to keep the ball on the front wall, retrieved like a dog and got game ball 10-7 over Schille.  Schille evened it up 10-10 and the crowd was getting tense, but Matt wanted it more and at 12-12 put in the craziest shooting rally ever, eventually claiming the game 14-12.  In the 4th thing were so intense that when the referee played a let on one of Matt's retrieves that the audience groaned, Nicolas couldn't handle it and jumped up and screamed in shock!  In extra points the rallies were intense but Matt was not able not find the right bounces and Schille moved into the Semi-Finals.  Tomorrow Matt will have 1 match to get into the top 8.

Trevor Borland (left) and Yvon Provencial (right) hard at work

Nathan getting ready to serve

Here comes the Thunder!

Getting Ready to watch Matthew

Matthew, Nicolas, and Gavin

Day 3!  Here we come.

Ben

Settling in after a long day!

Wow, it truly was a long day of travel, just to get to the hotel.  After everyone arrived safely at the airport and waited till 4:00pm to pick up the rental vehicle we are told that they do not have the mini van we rented!  Wonderfully we were able to pack up into some new Chevy 6 passenger vehicle that barely has room for our gear.  Packed in and pilled up to the windows we made our way into the thick urban jungle of Canada'd Golden Horseshoe.

The drive from the airport lead us into the early rush of traffic on the 401.  We almost got parked on the 401 but were able to keep moving at a crawl.  The fact that we were on the widest stretch of highway in North America was lost on the kids in the vehicle, some sleeping, others zoning out and looking for shopping malls.  One hours later we crawled into the hotel before heading back on the road to go hit the courts and get a feel for the facility.   The facility is nice, but the courts are old school cinder block with panelling on the wall.  There are no glass backs to the courts but you can look down on the courts from above the back wall.  Coaching is gong to be a challenge and will require quite the amount to running from top to bottom between matches.  Its all part of the event.  The kids had a good 90 minutes on court and have stretched their legs enough to work out the kinks of travel.

Getting back to the room you can see that we have a sea of cots in the living room.  Interestingly there are 2 tv's in the room but neither has been turned on...everyone is opting for the small screen over the big screen.  

10:25am first match of the tournament.  Let go Nicolas!

Ben